


They Tell Me

by luna_plath



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: takingitinturns, Established Relationship, F/M, Hogwarts, One Shot, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:09:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d brushed his fingers over her spine, lightly touching her naked back, thinking that maybe this was what people called closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Tell Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for takingitinturns on LJ. Thanks to sherylyn for the beta : )

On the morning of the ceremony to commemorate the fallen at the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry wakes early, before Ginny has crawled out of bed for her morning run. He stumbles into the bathroom and starts the hot water, unfazed by his wild hair in the mirror.

It’s the three-year anniversary of Voldemort’s defeat and he’s promised to attend, though he won’t be giving a speech of any kind. McGonagall has spared him that, at least.

He places a hand on the humid bathroom tile, the spray of water from the shower easing his stiffened shoulders. Auror training has made him strong and lean, has added substance to his formerly lanky frame, but he will always think himself too bony, his angles too sharp. Next to Ginny, the differences between their bodies are startling. Harry thinks of the shape of her hair spread across the pillow and the sveltely curve of her hip beneath the sheet. He ignores the pressure in his groin and rinses soap from his limbs, water pouring over his skin.

The early light lends a bluish cast to the world around him, making Ginny’s hair look dark and inky instead of the flame-red he’s so attached to. Harry dries himself with a sweep from his wand and pulls out the formal clothes he’ll be wearing for the ceremony. The Auror-issue uniform seems too red for the occasion, but they’re his duty, like everything else today, a testament to everything that’s been lost.

He dresses, lacing up his boots and fastening the cloak about his shoulders. Harry slips out of the bedroom as Ginny sleeps.

\----

Mist clings to the rolling lawns that surround Hogwarts, covering the grounds like a shroud. The ceremony does not start for several hours but Harry cannot stand the idea of idly waiting to face everyone, so he walks, circling the grounds while thoughts prick the back of his neck. The summer he turned fifteen, he’d spent his time prowling through the neighborhoods around Private Drive, restless in his uncertainty, and the old habit is a comfort to him now.

Harry stuffs his hands into his pockets, remembering the same drifting, tense feeling of uncertainty he’d felt immediately after Dumbledore’s death. The memory is numbingly distant, and he can’t believe that it was only a few years before the stability he has now.

For a place that has seen so much death in recent years, he can’t help but think that Hogwarts is beautiful. The chirping summer birds and dewy flowers all seem to agree with him. The fact that these simple things are preserved, that they have returned to repair such a bloodied place, makes his stomach turn, and it is difficult for him to look at any of it too closely.

Harry drags his hand through his hair, apathetic towards how it probably looks. The clean, rippling edge of the lake flashes a dozen impressions of his appearance back at him, and he has a sudden urge to toss a rock into the water, to disrupt the placid surface. Hundreds may be dead, but everything else is stubbornly alive. That thought only brings up a sharp emptiness in his chest.

\----

The doors to the castle open as more people arrive and Harry enters along with other former students, some he knows, others less familiar to him.

It’s somehow a relief to be able to walk through the Entrance Hall again and ascend the marble staircase, but with entrance to the castle comes the looks he’s anticipated this entire time. Suddenly, Harry wants nothing more than to be in bed with Ginny again, quiet before the start of the day, safe alongside her body and beneath the rumpled bedcovers. He pretends to ignore the curious, and sometimes accusing, glances that come his way. Even if he is responsible for Voldemort’s defeat, there are still those who wish he’d done something sooner, that the fall of the most recent Dark Lord had come at a lesser cost. Their looks prickle his skin like a charm gone wrong; Harry forces himself to look straight ahead and clench his jaw in silence.

Harry has no answer for them. He did what had to be done, as he’s told himself hundreds of times, but the statement isn’t enough to fully eclipse his feelings of guilt or frustration. Normally, Ginny is his best counsel when he gets like this. She’s always been resistant to the brooding that’s part of how he deals with dissonant thoughts, but he can’t find her in the first wave of attendees. Harry continues his trek away from the main huddle of guests, hoping that he’ll stumble across Ginny during his wanderings about the castle.

He has an hour before the ceremony is scheduled to start, although the time restraint does little to dictate his actions. Despite being an Auror and a well-known figure in the wizarding public, he rarely finds himself at Hogwarts, and the desire to poke around in some of his favorite places is too strong to disregard.

As he rounds a corner, something bright catches his eye. Pausing, Harry realizes that his feet have unintentionally led him to the path for Gryffindor Tower. Ginny is perched on a windowsill, her hair a flaming halo in the slanting light. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

“Did you put a Tracking Charm on me?” he asks, his hands in his pockets.

Ginny only glances at him, but he can practically hear the smile in her voice. “No. You’re just predictable.”

It’s meant to be teasing and he can’t help but offer a full smile at her words. She hops off the windowsill and tugs on his elbow, her touch sparking something warm in his belly.

“I guess I don’t have to ask where we’re going,” Harry says, lacing his fingers through hers.

\----

The Fat Lady hadn’t wanted to admit them to the tower, but Ginny had cheekily reminded her that it was summer, meaning there technically wasn’t a password, and they were former Gryffindors anyway. Faced with that logic, the portrait had been forced to submit, though not before Harry had got a sharp elbow to the ribs for chuckling at Ginny’s annoyance.

“Eager to see your old bed?” she quips, following Harry up the staircase to the boys’ dormitories.

“Yes. Especially if it’s got you in it.”

Once they reach the room that used to belong to himself, Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville, he closes the door. The window is open to the summer air, and while Harry can’t hear any of the ceremony attendees, he can see them gathering by the lake as rows of chairs slowly fill up with guests. Ginny worms her way between him and the window, blocking his view.

“Why did you really come to this?” she asks, peering up at him through deep-set brown eyes. He brings his arms around her waist, thinking.

“I don’t think I know,” he answers. “I thought I would feel better about it if I could just come back and see that things are the same, but it doesn’t mean as much as I thought it would.”

“You think too much,” Ginny says, kissing him.

Her mouth covers his, softer and fuller than his own. Harry swipes his tongue between her lips, searching for the soft sound she makes against him sometimes. His hand is cupping her face while she unfastens his cloak, her fingers tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

“Bed,” he says, steering them away from the window and any prying eyes that may spot them up in the tower.

Ginny shimmies out of her sundress while he finishes the work she started on his shirt, and once she’s in front of him in her bra and knickers he can’t help but reach for her. She reaches for his belt buckle while he kisses her chest, loving the softness of her skin and the gasp she makes when he reaches inside her bra to cup her breast. Harry rolls onto the bed and positions her on top of him, sliding his trousers down his legs while she unhooks her bra. He presses her body against his own, his hands on her hips, reaching up to pinch her nipples as she rubs herself over the hardness in his boxers.

Through the open window he can hear McGonagall speaking, but the sound is like a mumbled conversation in another room, like the half-registered tones of birds in the early morning.

Harry reverses their position, rolling her onto her back. He pins Ginny’s wrists above her head, holding them both in one hand while he kisses her neck over and over again. Her eyes are closed and her full, perfect lips are parted in a silent O.

“Do you know how many times I imagined this?” he whispers, biting her ear.

Ginny drags her nails down his back, making him shiver and roll his hips against hers. “Imagined what?” she teases.

“You. In this bed. With me.”

She does not reply to him, pushing her knickers past her legs instead. Ginny always did say he talks too much. Harry thinks that this is the best kind of silence.

\----

The path from the castle steps to the gates is long and winding, taking them in sight of the lake, the whomping willow, and the Quidditch pitch. Harry’s eyes linger on the different features of the grounds but he feels no urge to explore them. Ginny’s hand is clutched in his, freckled and smaller than his own. If other attendees look at them, he doesn’t see it.

Earlier he’d lain in his old four-poster with Ginny’s hair tickling his chest, his limbs loose and relaxed over the rumpled linens. He’d brushed his fingers over her spine, lightly touching her naked back, thinking that maybe this was what people called closure.

Hogwarts sits behind him, complete with all the deaths he was unable to prevent, the mistakes he committed in trying to defeat Voldemort. Their weight slides from his shoulders, boundless as Ginny’s laughter in the summer breeze. The day is still undeniably alive, with sunlight and green leaves following them through the gates, and Harry wonders if that means something.


End file.
